In spite of the events of the night Micky Mellowes slept soundly. It
was half-past nine when he woke, to find his man Driver moving
noiselessly about the room.
When he saw that Micky was awake he approached the bed.
"Good-morning, sir, and a happy New Year."
Driver had an expressionless voice; he announced tea or tragedy in
exactly the same tone.
"Eh?" said Micky vacantly; the words opened the door of memory, and he
sat up with a start. It was New Year's Day, and last night ... ye
gods! what had not happened last night? Micky tingled to the tips of
his fingers as he remembered the letter he had written and posted; he
had expected to feel rotten about it in the light of day; it was an
agreeable surprise to find that he did not feel anything of the kind.
When he went in to breakfast there was a pile of letters waiting for
him; he looked them through carelessly--there was one from Marie
Deland, which he opened with a vague feeling of nervousness.
Marie was a nice little girl; he really was quite fond of her, and yet
... surely the days of miracles had not yet passed away, seeing that
in a few short hours his feeling for her had changed from something
warmer to more brotherly affection.
It made him feel uncomfortable to read what she had written; it was
really only quite an ordinary letter of regret that she had not seen
him last night, but Micky imagined he could read more between the
lines.
"... I quite hoped you would drop in, if only for a few moments," so
she wrote. "It's been so dull. I am writing this alone in the
library."
Micky knew that library well; he and she had spent a good deal of time
there together talking sweet nothings; he wondered if he would have
been an engaged man by this time if that relative of the Delands had
not so conveniently died, and if Esther had not chosen his particular
street in which to weep.
He screwed the letter up and tossed it into the fire; he would answer
it some time, or call; there was no immediate hurry. When he had
finished his breakfast he went to his locked desk and took out
Ashton's letter--somehow until he actually saw it again he could not
quite believe that the events of last night had not all been a dream;
but the letter was real enough, at all events with its callous
beginning to "Dear Lallie."
The morning seemed to drag; twice people rang him up on the 'phone and
asked him to lunch, but Micky was not in the mood for lunch; he felt a
suppressed sort of excitement, as if something of great import were
about to happen.
Driver looked at him woodenly once or twice; his face was as
expressionless as his voice, but his dull eyes saw everything, and
behind them his keen brain wondered what had happened to make Micky so
restless.
Towards one o'clock he ventured a gentle reminder.
"You have an engagement for half-past three, sir--Miss Langdon's."
Micky was yawning over the paper then; he looked up with an absurdly
blank face.
"Oh, I say!--well, I can't go, anyway. What was it for? I'm going
out--I've got an important appointment."
Driver never showed surprise at anything if he felt it.
"It was a musical 'At 'Ome,' sir," he answered stolidly. "Shall I ring
up and say that you won't be able to come?"
"Yes, ring up," said Micky. He coloured self-consciously beneath the
man's stoic eyes and hurriedly buried his head again in the
newspaper.
At three o'clock he changed his clothes for an immaculate morning-coat
and grey trousers; then, remembering what Esther had said about the
very horrid boarding-house, he changed them again for the oldest tweed
suit in his possession, and a pair of brown boots that had seen their
best days and long since been condemned by Driver.
"How in the world do I get to Brixton?" Micky asked the man when he
was ready. "I know I could take a taxicab, but I don't want to. What
other ways are there?"
Driver told him.
"There's the train, sir, or a tram."
Micky jumped at the tramcar. He was sure that people who lived in
Brixton must all use tramcars.
"How long would a tramcar take?" he asked.
Driver considered. Finally he said that he thought it might be the
best part of an hour.
Micky glanced at the clock. It was already a quarter past three. He
took up his hat hurriedly and went out into the street.
A taxicab would have to do for to-day anyway. He could dismiss it at
the corner of the road and walk the last few yards. A moment later he
was being whirled through the streets.
He sat leaning back in the corner with his feet up on the seat
opposite, feeling decidedly nervous.
Supposing he did not see Esther--supposing she were not there?
Supposing she had purposely given him the wrong address? Supposing
... oh, supposing a thousand and one things! Micky was full of
apprehension when at last the taxicab stopped at the corner of the
Brixton Road and the driver came to the door to ask what number.
Micky scrambled out.
"Oh, I'll walk the rest of the way."
He paid the man liberally, and set out along the crowded pathway.
There were so many people about that he thought it must be a market
day or something. A word with a policeman elicited the information
that he was at quite the wrong end of the street for the number he
wanted. Micky was rather glad. He felt that he needed time in which to
collect his thoughts, and yet when at last he reached his destination
he felt as nervous as a kitten and strongly inclined to go back. But
he went on and up the bare strip of garden which led to the front door
of the house. It wasn't such a bad-looking house, he thought. Not
nearly as bad as he had expected from the girl's description. In fact,
once upon a time it must have been rather a palatial residence, but
all the windows now were boxed up with cheap, starchy-looking
curtains, and there was a sort of third-rate atmosphere about the
basement and the cheap knocker on the front door.
Micky looked for a bell, but there wasn't one, so he knocked.
It seemed a long time before anybody came. When at last they did he
heard them coming for a long time before the door was opened, heard
slipshod steps on shiny linoleum, and a husky sort of breathless
cough.
The owner of the cough was young and scared-looking, in shoes several
sizes too large for her, and a skirt several inches too short. When
Micky asked for Miss Shepstone she stared without answering for a
moment, then she turned and slopped back the way she had come, leaving
the door on the chain.
Micky chuckled to himself; she evidently did not like the look of
him.
He waited patiently; then he heard another step along the shiny
linoleumed floor of the hall--a very different step this time--and,
turning eagerly, he saw Esther herself in the doorway.
"I didn't really think you would come," she said breathlessly.
For a moment Micky could not find his tongue. If he had thought this
girl pretty last night with the tears in her eyes he thought her a
thousand times prettier now. She looked as if some magician hand had
wiped the distress from her face and convinced her that the sun still
shone.
She wore the same clothes she had worn last night, but even they
seemed somehow to have changed. There was a bunch of violets pinned in
her jacket. Micky wondered if it were the violets that were
responsible for the alteration.
"When I make an appointment I always keep it," he said.
He had almost added "with any one like you," but thought better of it.
"And are you going to let me take you out to tea?" he asked.
She hesitated; she glanced back into the dingy hall behind her.
"I am leaving here to-day," she said. "My box has gone already. If you
will wait a moment ... I would ask you in, but you'd hate it so."
"I'll wait outside," said Micky.
He went down into the street. For the moment he had quite forgotten
all about Ashton and the letter which must by this time be in Esther's
possession.
"And what about Charlie?" he asked whimsically when she joined him.
She smiled, shaking her head.
"I sent him on--in a basket. Nobody wants him here--he only gets
badgered about all day long; so I'm taking him with me. Do you think I
ought not to?"
"I think Charlie is a most fortunate cat," said Micky.
She did not take him seriously.
"I think he will be happier with me anyway," she said "I'm going to
quite a nice boarding-house now. I went out this morning and found
it." She looked up at him with a smile. "I don't think even you would
mind coming to tea there," she said.
"I thought you were going to say mind coming there to live," Micky
told her audaciously. "I've been looking about for fresh diggings; I'm
tired of mine." He stopped and glanced behind him. "Can we get a
tramcar here?"
"I'm not tired," she said quickly.
"Well, I must admit that I am," Micky answered. He hated walking at
the best of times, and he did not like to suggest another taxicab.
"Let's go on top."
They climbed up and found a front seat; there was a working man next
to them smoking shag in a clay pipe; he looked at Micky and Esther
doubtfully, then asked--
"Does your good lady mind smoke, mister?"
Esther flushed.
"I don't mind at all," she said, laughing.
"You got home all right last night, then?" Micky said presently.
"After you had gone I wished I had seen you safely in...."
"It's kind of you, but I was quite all right." There was a note of
constraint in her voice. "I should like to thank you for what you did
for me last night," she said hesitatingly.
"If it hadn't been for you...." She stopped.
Micky did not know what to say.
"Anyway, it's all right now, eh?" he asked presently, with awkward
cheerfulness. "I thought it would be; when things look so black that
they can't possibly look any blacker, they always begin to mend. I've
found that out before; I don't know if you have."
"I found it out this morning."
Micky looked down at her. She was sitting with her hands clasped
together in her lap; there was a little flush in her cheeks, and her
lips were curved into a faint smile.
"It seems so wonderful too," she went on softly, "that it should have
happened on New Year's Day----"
"Fares, all fares, please," said the conductor beside them. Micky
dived into a pocket and found a shilling.
"Two, please," he said.
He had paid for and shared taxicabs with Marie Deland times without
number, but it had never given him quite the same pleasurable little
thrill as he experienced at this moment.
There was something so pleasantly familiar about this tramcar ride,
the fact of sharing the same uncomfortable seat with Esther
Shepstone.
"Penny ones?" the conductor asked.
Micky looked at the girl.
"Where shall we get off?" he asked.
"Penny ones will do," she said.
Micky took the tickets and pocketed his change.
"I don't know if there are any decent teashops round here," he said
dubiously. "If you would rather go up to the West End...."
But finally they found a confectioner's quite close to where the penny
fare ended.
Micky looked round critically.
"Is this all right?" he asked. "I've never been here before."
"I have, often," she said. She was drawing off her gloves.
Micky glanced hurriedly at her hands; she was wearing a ring. Hardly
knowing that he did so, he leaned across and touched it.
"Is that an engagement ring?" he asked. His voice sounded a little
breathless.
She looked up at him, drawing her hand away.
"Why do you ask me?"
He drew back; he shrugged his shoulders.
"I beg your pardon. I suppose I have no right to ask."
He ordered tea. He talked rather forced platitudes for the rest of the
time. He was just going to call for the bill, when Esther Shepstone
said suddenly--
"Mr. Mellowes, I should like to tell you something."
"Yes!" Micky did not look at her. Somehow he could not trust himself.
"I don't in the least know why I want to tell you," she said again
nervously. "But--you've been so kind to me...."
"Yes!" said Micky gently, as she paused. "Yes, what is it?"
She was twisting her teaspoon, and she kept her eyes lowered.
"Last night, when I met you--I was very unhappy ... There didn't seem
anything to live for in the world.... I don't know if you've ever felt
like that, or if you have ever cared for any one--really cared, I
mean--but if you have...." She stopped again.
"I think I understand," Micky said, with an effort. "You mean that
there's some one, some man...."
She raised her grey eyes to his face.
"Yes, that's what I mean."
"Some man you care for--care for very much," Micky went on slowly.
"Perhaps some one you have quarreled with--who hadn't been quite as
... kind as he might have been----"
The soft colour flooded her face.
"Did you guess--last night?" she asked shyly.
Micky smiled.
"Did I? I am not sure, perhaps." He drew a long breath that was half a
sigh. "Well?" he queried.
"I don't know why I am telling you this----" she said again, with a
sort of distress. "It cannot interest you, but, somehow, I think I
should like you to know."
"It interests me very much--I am honoured that you should tell me."
Micky looked again at the ring she wore; quite a cheap little ring,
with a couple of inferior diamonds. "You mean that you are engaged to
be married?"
"Yes; at least----" The words were only a whisper.
Micky sat very still.
"Well, I suppose you will have me for a friend all the same, won't
you?" he asked with an effort.
She looked at him in faint amazement.
"I thought if I told you that perhaps you'd rather not...." She
stopped in confusion.
Micky leaned a little closer over the table.
"You said last night that you didn't believe in a man's friendship for
a woman," he said. "Well, I am going to make you believe in it. I'm
going to be your friend. The fact that you are engaged makes no
difference to me, if it doesn't to you."
She looked at him earnestly.
"If you mean that," she said, "I think I'm very glad."
"Thank you. I suppose I mustn't ask who the--the lucky man is?"
She shook her head.
"I can't tell you. And he's away now--out of England."
Her voice changed a little, her eyes looked past Micky as if for the
moment she had forgotten him.
Micky watched her jealously.
"And so whatever was wrong last night is all right to-day, is that
it?" he asked with an effort.
"Yes ... somehow I never thought it would be, but this morning----"
"This morning?" he echoed as she stopped.
"I had a letter this morning," she told him, and her voice had
softened so wonderfully that Micky caught his breath. "Oh, I wonder if
you have ever been as unhappy as I was last night, and then had a
letter, a wonderful letter like I had this morning? There was
something in it that seemed to put everything right straight away;
something that I've always wanted before and never had. I can't
explain it any better than that, but perhaps you understand. I'm just
telling you because I feel so happy I must tell somebody, and because
I didn't want you to misjudge him as I did yesterday. I thought he
didn't really care, and I wanted to die, but to-day, when his letter
came----" She broke off into a little happy laugh.
Micky had rammed his clenched hands into his pockets; the blood was
hammering in his temples; his brain felt in a whirl; somehow in all
his wildest imaginings he had never dreamed of this.
It was his letter that had brought that new look of happiness to her
eyes! His letter which perhaps even then lay against her heart; the
first love-letter he had ever written to any woman, and she believed
it to have been written by Raymond Ashton!
He did not realise how long he sat there without speaking till Esther
spoke to him again. There was a little anxious note in her voice.
"I'm afraid I've bored you horribly with all this. I know it's no
interest to you, but I felt that I must tell somebody."
Micky roused himself with an effort.
"It's of great interest to me," he said. "And you mustn't ever say a
thing like that again. We're going to be friends, and real friends are
always interested in everything that concerns the other. I'm more glad
than I can say that you're happy. I only hope it's going to last for
ever."
Perhaps there was a dubious note in his voice, for an anxious gleam
crept into the girl's eyes.
"You sound as if you don't think that it will," she said quickly.
Micky made a hurried disclaimer.
"I do think so, of course I do! You deserve all the happiness you can
get, and whoever the man is, if he doesn't make you happy----"
He stopped, with frowning memory of Ashton and their parting only last
night.
He hoped in his heart that they would never meet again; if they did,
he realised that there would be quite a few nasty things he would feel
called upon to say to him.
The waitress brought the bill at that moment and put an end to further
conversation, for which he was thankful. He realised that he was
getting rather out of his depth. He breathed more freely when they
were safely out in the street.
"And where is the new boarding-house?" he asked presently. He wanted
to change the subject; every moment he was afraid that he would say
something to give himself away. He supposed he had behaved like an
impetuous fool. He ought never to have posted that letter--ought never
to have opened Ashton's; and yet--if he had not done so.... He looked
down at the girl beside him, and wondered grimly how she would have
felt if he had allowed that callous farewell to reach her.
"It's quite close to where we are now," she told him. "It's rather
more expensive than the last one, but it's well worth the extra money,
and"--she glanced up at him smilingly--"I'm better off to-day than I
was yesterday," she explained. "And when I go back to work again----"
"Are you going back, then?" he asked quickly.
"Of course I am. I must do something, and they will take me back at
Eldred's, I know----"
"Eldred's!" Micky frowned. "That's the petticoat shop, isn't it?"
She laughed.
"Yes; how did you know?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I've seen the place lots of times. A girl I know buys all her----" He
stopped. "Do you want to go back there?" he asked.
"Not particularly, but it's easier than looking for a fresh place, and
I know they will take me. I'm in the workroom, and it's not really
such a hard life."
Micky did some rapid thinking; it was surprising how easily his brain
had taken to hard work during the last twenty-four hours.
"Why don't you get a job as a companion to a nice old lady or
somebody?" he suggested vaguely.
She laughed again.
"It doesn't sound a bit attractive," she said frankly. "I think you
need an awful lot of patience. It's very kind of you to be interested,
but I think I shall go back to Eldred's, for a time, at least."
Micky did not like the idea at all, but he let the subject drop.
"Are you going back to the Brixton Road?" he asked after a moment.
"Oh no; I paid them before I left this afternoon, so I shall go
straight to the new place."
"I should like to walk there with you, if I may," said Micky.
"Of course you may."
"And when shall I see you again?" he asked. "You're not going to
vanish for days, are you? I've got no end of time to kill, and----"
"But I haven't," she reminded him. "At least, I shan't have when I
start work. But I should like to see you again," she added kindly.
"Thank you," said Micky with faint sarcasm.
He felt vaguely disappointed with the whole afternoon. She was holding
him so decidedly at arm's length. He supposed it was that infernal
fellow Ashton that stood between them. There was a sort of irony, too,
in the fact that he himself had by his own action established him more
firmly than ever in this girl's affections.
And the fellow was not worth a thought! That was the rotten part of
it. As he looked at her he felt strongly tempted to blurt out the
truth; to tell her that it was he who wrote that letter--to undeceive
her once and for all.
But the thing was manifestly impossible. She would probably think it
an abominable thing to have opened Ashton's letter; she would probably
be furious if he let her know that the money she had received had come
from him. Whichever way he turned he seemed to be in a corner.
They had reached the new boarding-house now, and Micky was relieved to
see that it was a decided improvement on the one in the Brixton Road.
The windows were not boxed up, and the steps and the bell were clean.
It was on the sunny side of the road, too, and had an air of
cheerfulness about it.
"It's much better than the other one, isn't it?" Esther asked.
"Streets better," he assured her. "I shouldn't mind living here
myself...." He waited, but she made no comment, and he felt rather
snubbed.
There was a little silence.
"Don't you like the place where you are living now?" she asked after a
moment. "Don't they make you comfortable there?"
"Oh, it's comfortable enough," said Micky. He wondered if he looked as
guilty as he felt. "But I don't believe in sticking on anywhere too
long. A change is good for every one. I shall be shifting out some day
soon, I expect."
There was a little silence.
"I shall see you again soon," he said. "And if there is anything I can
do for you----"
"Thank you, but there isn't." She spoke quite kindly, but Micky had
the uncomfortable sort of feeling that her thoughts were elsewhere. He
waited a moment, then held out his hand.
"Well, good-bye."
"Good-bye, and thank you for my tea."
She nodded and smiled and turned away from him.
There was nothing else for Micky to do but to go; he raised his hat
and walked off disconsolately.